military and intelligence officials. they were also shown a video taken from surveillance cameras at the consulate and from drones flying overhead. >> it does begin from before the incident started and it goes through the incident. and the exodus. >> reporter: but as thorough as thursday's briefing was, members still have a lot of questions. >> we're going to continue to work to get those answers. >> reporter: and there's new information out of thursday's congressional hearing. lawmakers say the cia confirmed to them susan rice was told spontaneous protests over the antiislam film sparked the attack. >> we do not have information at present. >> reporter: rice was given the information as part of an up classifying briefing before she appeared on sunday morning talk shows five days after the attack. >> that unclassified version turned out to be inaccurate as we found out later. >> reporter: several republican senators are threatening to block reese from becoming the -- rice from becoming the next

secretary of state because of her assertions the attack didn't appear to be preplanned. susan mcginnis, cbs news, washington. >> the cia also opening an exploratory investigation into the conduct of its former director petraeus. as you know he resigned from his position last friday after the fbi revealed he had an affair with his biographer paula broadwell. investigators want to know if petraeus did or told broadwell anything which may have compromised national security despite the efforts to improve mental health programs, suicide rates are going up for active members of the -- members of the military. the pentagon says this year 166 soldiers have taken their own lives. that's already more than all of 2011. the problem has been linked to combat stress, but the army says many of the soldiers who have committed suicide all this year have never been deployed. is there some common ground to be found? president obama will be meeting with congressional leaders today to talk about how they are going to address the

upcoming fiscal cliff. now the president is publicly saying he wants higher taxes on the richest americans. republicans say closing tax loopholes could do the trick. if we don't meet in the middle we could go back into a recession economists say. it's a long list of spending cuts and tax increases which will take effect in january if they do nothing. a student accused of murdering her roommate has been found not on all charges. >> after three days of testimony, jurors sided with alexis simpson and her defense team which argued that dominique frazier's killing was a result of self-defense and not of murder. >> we never doubt it because we know our friend. >> truth prevailed through all of it. that's all i can say. >> reporter: friends and family rejoiced as they left a prince george's county courtroom in upper marlboro. it took the jury about three hours to return with a not guilty verdict on all seven

counts simpson was facing. >> thank you god. >> reporter: simpson gave emotional testimony on thursday saying she didn't mean to give her college roommate dominique frazier when she swung a knife and cut her throat. instead they maintained it happened in self-defense because the young woman feared for her safety. the jury bought that story and left the prosecution in disbelief. >> we are very disappointed tonight. we presented what we thought was very clear and strong evidence and there are no winners tonight. this is a very sad case. it has been throughout the duration. >> reporter: the defense chose to put simpson on the sound because according to them they wanted to convey her thoughts that night. >> her emotion was very genuine and she is tremendously remorseful for this incident. it has affected her emotionally in ways that you can only imagine. >> reporter: it was that testimony that may convinced the injury but alls you would -- jury but as you would imagine those outside the courtroom -- >> she doesn't need to be

walking the streets. >> we happy. that's it. >> very happy. >> happy. >> reporter: alexis simpson sobbed as the jury read the not guilty verdict on all seven counts. the defense team says she will now plan an continuing her collegiate studies but not at bowie state. ken molestina, 9news now. jarrett the principal of coolidge high school is due in a courtroom today to be formally charged for assault. jarrett turned herself into police yesterday morning. she's accused of punching a former coolidge high school employee in the face. after a football game. ? , the principal of the school -- this, the principal of the school. two other staff members are charged as accomplices in the assault. british petroleum will pay $4.5 billion for its role in the deadly oil rig explosion and the oil leak in the gulf of mexico. the money includes more than $1 billion in criminal penalties.

they also pleaded guilty to 12 felony charges relating to the deaths of the 11 workers and of lying to congress about the amount of oil spilling into the gulf. two former employees and a current employee will also face manslaughter charges. >> bp chose to mislead the public. that's not what we expect from public companies and their management. and in fact, it is exactly in times of crisis that the need for accurate information is most acute. >> in a statement, bp group chief executive bob dudley said quote -- president obama turns staten island -- toured staten island thursday to get his firsthand look at the damage from the superstorm sandy. the president thanked workers for help in the recovery effort. 47,000 new yorkers have applied now for housing through fema.

many of them want the government to act faster in this case. the president is urging insurance companies to quote show some heart and some spirit to help people rebuild. it is 4:36. here's a look at some other things making news now. three israelis and 18 palestinians including two children were killed in cross border attacks between the israeli military and hamas. israeli fighter jets spent the night firing on several targets in gaza. they have stationed troops and tanks at border to prepare for an incursion which is expected to begin sometime today. this is the heaviest fighting in the region if four years -- in four years. a sad story. listen to this. a parade honoring wounded veterans ended in tragedy in midland. texas. four people killed and 17 were injured when a freight train hit the float that the veterans were riding on during this parade. the veterans were on the way to a banquet and they got stuck in traffic on the float flatbed and the train hit the note.

float. -- float. it was stuck on the tracks. the lites were working and it sounded its horn but still ended in tragedy. baseball announced its 2012 most valuable players and as expected, detroit tigers' miguel cabrera won the american league award. he was baseball's first triple crown winner since 1967. he hit .333 with 44 home runs and 139 runs batted in. san francisco catcher buster posey was the national league mvp. he came back from a devastating injury in 2011 to win the nl batting title rather with a .336 average. he also led the giants to the world series title. time now 4:37. another cool day outside this weekend could be a bit of a warmup though. howard is back in two minutes. he's got your weekend forecast. >> two of the country's largest shipping giants are now the subject of a federal probe. >> unless something changes and very soon we could be saying good-bye to some of our

favorite baked treats. >> say it isn't so. >> those stories and more coming up in your money. >> 9news now returns in two minutes.

4:40 on this friday morning. chilly out there. southern maryland lower eastern shore you're seeing a couple of sprinkles even but we're going to see clouds this morning and more sun later this afternoon and high temperatures approaching 55 degrees. looking decent for the weekend. those details in about five minutes. right now here's monika with timesaver traffic. northbound on 395, here's what it looks like as you go up to the 14th street bridge right now lanes are ohm. it's friday morning light everybody. looking good. leaving duke street and then if you head to the 14th street bridge, you're going to be okay as well. lanes are open. i'll be back with more traffic coming up in a few minutes. back to you guys. thanks monika. it's time for the first your

money segment of the morning. >> i didn't hear numbers yesterday jess. how'd we do? >> what do you think? they weren't great. >> sliding off the cliff still. >> marching ever closer to the edge of the cliff and in the meantime wall street has been paying attention to the head of the economy and the banking system. bernanke says tight bank lending may be holding back the economy. he told the financial summit in atlanta that many qualified borrowers cannot get loans or buy houses. the fed is trying to help the housing market through its bond -- buyback program and low interest rates. now it was another down day for wall street. investors reacted to news that the 17 country euro zone hasshipped back into a recession for the -- has slipped back into a recession for the first time in four years. checking the numbers -- shipping giant fedex and u.p.s. are the subject of a federal criminal investigation relating to their dealings with online

pharmacies. federal probation reports are looking -- prosecutors are looking into issues related to the transportation of packages for online pharmacies. now the pharmacies have been apt the earn of the -- at the center of an international crackdown on prescription drug abuse. thousands of websites have been shut down since 2005 and tens of millions of dollars in pills have been seized worldwide. last year google agreed to pay $500 million to settle allegations by the justice department that it profited from ads for illegal online pharmacies. the u.s. postal service lost a record $16 billion in the latest fiscal year. that's nearly $11 billion more than the previous year. the agency has been urging congress to let it cut delivery service from six days the five and reduce annual payments for future retiree health benefits. sandy being blamed for an increase in the nation's unemployment numbers. the department of labor says 439,000 people requested benefits last week. that's the highest level in 18 months. the department says many of the

78,000 new applications came in states that were hit hard by sandy. people in those states can claim unemployment if their workplace closes temporarily and they don't get paid from that. a new survey finds companies plan to hire more college graduates next year. the good news. the michigan state university study predicts a 5% increase in the number of hiring for four year college grads. mba hiring though appears headed for a decline. the ever popular twinkie and wonder bread will ask a bankruptcy court for permission to liquidate. they say they're bankrupt and they need their workers to accept an 8% pay cut along with other concessions. workers went on strike as a response. workers say they're being used as a scapegoat for several years of bad management. >> wow. twinkies however will last forever. >> that's true. i was just thinking that you

know. that's going to last longer than the labor problems. >> fearing the twinkies won't be there anymore will have a run on twinkies at the store. >> the brand is not going to go away. you can't pay for the name recognition of twinkies and hostess. >> thanks jess. well, the white house gives state governments an extension on the deadline for the health care law. >> we'll have more on that story plus your weather first when we return in two minutes. what will the weekend be like? we'll be back.

good morning, welcome back to 9news now. 4:46. it's a friday morning. we're looking forward to the weekend and forward to howard's forecast. >> and it's looking better and better. we're worried about the storm coastal tarp a few days -- storm a few days ago that might affect us sunday into monday. now it's going to be far enough south and east that we'll have little impact from that.

a little bit of clouds and wind on sunday, that's about it. >> it will be sunday before anything. football game in annapolis, we're good. >> terps are home, the skins have a home game sunday. it's going to be cool. it's mid-november but it's not going to be raw and rainy. >> that's the good news. >> all right, here's the bus stop forecast on this friday morning. it is all the chilly side. low to mid-40s south and east of town. we'll call it mostly cloudy skies here. through the day we're going to start with the clouds and we'll become partly sunny midday into the afternoon. that will help boost temps to about 55 for the high. 52 at 4:00. and then by this evening we're back in the mid 40s at 8:00 p.m. with once again lows in the 30s. going to be tough to get out of the 30s for lows unless we've got a big storm headed our way. little storm across eastern north carolina threw enough moisture into eastern virginia and it made it all the way up here. for us areas to the east this morning for us. a couple of sprinkles in anne

arundel, calvert, southeastern prince george's county. st. mary's, the heavier showers that were getting you are now east of the bay. this is tracking up toward cambridge. so you folks up there will have to watch that. and we're almost done with this stuff there down in the northern neck and also in st. mary's. temps this morning, there's the cold stuff. 28 cumberland. near freezing in much of the shenandoah valley this morning. with 36 in gaithersburg. but with the clouds are thicker we've had the sprinkles like the -- less than a tenth has fallen but still wet streets across calvert and st. mary's and far southeastern prince george's county. we have temperatures in the lower to middle 40s right now. outside on our michael & son weather camera, it's good looking picture there. the washington monument. the jefferson memorial. 42 degrees with cloudy skies. light northerly winds only about 5 miles an hour but enough to push that windchill down into the upper 30s this morning. another look at the big picture here. there's this little pulse coming out of north carolina. producing those showers we were just looking at. that will move off to the north

and east and then behind it, there's not much. little piece of energy with a few clouds and you can sort of follow the jet but it's all quiet and that's good because this thing is going to move out to sea. and we'll see sunshine returning here really by the middle of the day. so a nice sunny afternoon. clear to partly cloudy tonight. we get into saturday morning now, we're quiet and look at saturday. nothing nearby. a couple of clouds down to virginia beach and norfolk. so we're going to be in pretty good shape for the weekend. and it looks like we're going to be in pretty good shape for the holiday travel period too and even right through thanksgiving. today morning clouds afternoon sun. 55. we hit 51 yesterday afternoon. tonight we're back in the 30s and upper 30s in town low 30s north and west. 55 tomorrow with more sunshine. sunday, well we'll knock it down a degree to 54. it does look like there could be a couple more clouds moving in. especially east and southeast of town. by monday, we're back to 56 and then look at the temperatures, mid 50s and i'm thinking we could be 61 even on thanksgiving.

so if you have one of the turkey bowl football games with your friends. looks pretty nice for that. monika samtani it is ten to 5:00. good morning. good morning howard, good morning everybody. if you're planning to head around town. only good news for you on this inbound side of i-66 and the dulles toll road, everything is nice and light from the airport or manassas. no issues to report. there'd been some earlier construction really that should be cleared and all your lanes are open. over to georgetown on the inbound side of canal road, right here at the key bridge. water main work all the cones are set up so that it's a bit of a weird and tight squeeze heading arnold it trying to get on to the bridge span. actually both directions of the bridge span on the key bridge near georgetown. so keep that in mind for the travel plans especially as the rush hour progresses. back to the maps this time head over to southern maryland. right 4, route 50 -- route 4, route 5, route 301. everything is fine headed for the beltday and oxon hill. the branch avenue the lanes are open. i'll be back with more coming

up. back to you mike. thank you monika. it is 4:50 now. state governments have been granted an extension on the deadline for the new health care law. today had been the deadline for state governments to decide whether or not they would set up a health insurance exchange. well that next step in the health care reform law is the exchange. they allow people in small businesses to access an online market to find more affordable health care. d.c., maryland and 14 other states have already established the exchanges. virginia visuals will not create one. -- officials will not create one. states now have until december 14th to make the decision. support for the decriminalization of marijuana has grown significantly over the past few years. eight years ago then candidate obama was even in favor of the move. >> but the president has taken a different position. gary nuremberg takes a look at the president's opinion with

medical marijuana. >> reporter: the washington guardian posted the video. >> i think that we need to rethink and decriminalize our -- our marijuana laws. but i'm not somebody -- but i'm not somebody who believes in legalization. >> reporter: that was then. >> from november 2011 through today, there had been more medical marijuana dispensaries busted under the obama administration than in eight years of george bush's administration. >> why? >> i think the reason why this happened is for triangulation. that obama was not going to go into this presidency, going to this election, with his opponents hanging him out to try as allowing marijuana to become legal on his watch. >> reporter: 18 states and d.c. have medical marijuana laws now. because the law in d.c. has not yet been fully i want accomplishmented by the -- implemented by the city. leading to a potentially interesting consequence. >> if the cultivators are not

able to sell their product to the dispensaries waiting for them to open. that means the product they have is going to eventually go up in price. we could possibly end up with the case where the medical marijuana from the dispensaries would be more expensive than what these individuals could find it on the street. >> reporter: matt owns guardian resources of washington. his e-mail address is at growd.c..com. >> i think d.c. really dropped the ball. >> reporter: how long will it take to implement the law? when asked last year in july, d.c. health department officials said they expected the law would be in by may of 2012. six months ago. don't hold your breath. gary nuremberg, 9news now. >> you can see the entire video of mr. obama discussing decriminalizing marijuana on our website. just go to wusa9.com. okay, 4:53. let's check out the question of the morning now. >> this is it --

these choices are great. what do you think? go to our facebook fan page and leave your response. we'll have the answer during our 6:00 show. and this week, is especially good to answer the question of the day because we're giving away tickets to "les miserables." all you have to do is answer the question correctly and you'll be entered into a sweepstakes. randomly draw a name every day and that person gets four tickets to the play. les mis will be at the national theater next month. stay with us.

welcome back. 4:56. your weather first this friday morning. a couple of sprinkles in southern maryland and the lower eastern shorement we'll become partly sunny and a seasonably cool day. north winds 5 to 10 miles an hour and 53 by 1:00.

look for a high today right ashed 55 degrees. that's jacket weather for sure. monika? on the inbound side of canal road here at the key bridge watch out for water main work and as the rush hour progresses, it may be a little difficult to get around this area so remember that for your travel plans this morning. and i'll be back with mar at 5:01. thank you monika. the nation's river is improving but it's still far from where it should be they say. >> the potomac conservancy released its state of the river report. it downgraded the report from a d. plus to a d.. we're learning more about the pollution impacting the river. however more money needs to be devoted to clean water programs and we need to change the way land is developed in the walter shed. a former beatle helps out victims of superstorm sandy. >> the nominations are out. teresa garcia has those stories and more. >> reporter: the end is finally here for "twilight" fans. breaking dawn part 2 opens

today. it is the final installment of the wildly successful vampire franchise. some of the cast attended a special screening in new york last night. >> i'm you know very blessed i think to be a part of "twilight" in general but to be able to have the positive experience that i had is just been -- kind of irreplaceable. >> reporter: the previous "twilight" movies have remained true to the books this one has a plot twist that may surprise fans. the avengers is up for eight people's choice awards. the nominations were announced yesterday. her show the cbs comedy the big bang theory is up for an award. >> it would not be the show it is today without the love and support from our incredible fan. >> the people still get to voice their choice online for the winner of each category. the awards will be given out on january 9th. paul mccartney is among the big names scheduled to headline a benefit concert next month in new york city for victims of superstorm sandy.

kanye west, bruce springsteen and jon bon jovi will also perform. jennifer hudson takes the stage in "we will always love you." a salute to whitney houston. the special airs tonight at 10:00 on cbs. that's your year on entertainment. teresa garcia, cbs news, beverly hills. >> good morning and thank you for watching 9news now at 5:00 a.m. good morning patrick have a safe drive to the eastern shore. i'm andrea roane. >> i love that name patrick. i named my son that. and i'm mike hydeck. thank you for joining us. happy friday we're glad you're with us. >> it's a get name. >> it is. good morning monika. >> and how are you mr. howard bernstein? >> it is friday, weather is looking up right through the holiday even. so you got travel plans, you got people coming either way, it's going to work out pretty fine here. >> no problems. >> i don't see any. >> piece of cake. >> other than the schedule maybe. lack of cars or something. but weather is not going to be ab issue. here's a look at your day planner on this friday